Sweet potatoes are one of the most nutritional vegetables produced today. Sweet potatoes are widely accepted throughout the United States and the world. However, sweet potatoes are very sensitive to handling conditions as well as environmental conditions and for those reasons, it is often difficult to provide a healthy and fresh sweet potato at the retail level. It is not uncommon to find sweet potatoes within a grocery store that are withered and dry and therefore not "fresh". When cooked, these potatoes tend to be dry and fail to yield an acceptable taste.
Typically, sweet potatoes after harvest, are cleaned and then cured and stored until they are ready to be transported to market. Once a sweet potato has been removed from storage and transported to points of distribution and ultimately to retail grocery outlets, the sweet potato has been subjected to handling which sometimes results in the sweet potato being bruised and also during the period of time, the sweet potato through respiration begins to loose its moisture content. In turn, the loss of moisture content in the sweet potato results in the same loosing freshness and taste.
Related to the above concerns and problems with sweet potatoes, is the problem concerning sweet potato shelf life. Because sweet potatoes tend to loose their moisture content, it is well-known that some varieties of sweet potatoes have a relatively short shelf life. This, of course, results in the loss of substantial quantities of sweet potatoes and obviously reduces the return of the retailers and wholesalers.
Therefore, there is a need to increase the shelf life of sweet potatoes and to preserve their quality, freshness and overall appearance for a sufficient time period to enable the sweet potatoes to be transported to retail outlets and displayed for the consumer.